Lot 48: HARRIET GOODHUE HOSMER (1830-1908)

"PUCK ON A TOADSTOOL" AND "PUCK AND THE OWL", PENDANT WHITE MARBLE FIGURES OF FAIRIES each signed " HARRIET HOSMER FECIT ROME " 30 1/2 in. (77.5 cm.) and 33 in. (83.8 cm.) high, each on original four- part marble column EXHIBITED New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, " Nineteenth Century America: Paintings and Sculpture, " 1979 (ex catalogue) LITERATURE W. Gerdts, " American Neo-Classic Sculpture, " New York, 1973, pp. 136-137, figs. 166-167 J.L. Curran, editor, " Hosmeriana: A Guide to Works by and About Harriet G. Hosmer, " Watertown, MA, 1975 W. Craven, " Sculpture in America, " New York, 1984, pp. 328-328, fig. 9.10 J.S. Ramirez, "Harriet Goodhue Hosmer", " American Figurative Sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, " Boston, 1986, p. 160 Conceived circa 1856, " Puck on a Toadstool " was one of Hosmer's first commercial successes. Approximately fifty examples at a cost of $1000 each are recorded. So successful was the model that, a few years later, Hosmer conceived the pendant figures of " Will o" the Wisp and Puck and the Owl. " She reworked this second carving several times, varying the pose of the fairy's arms and legs, the base on which he sits and other details. Examples of " Puck on a Toadstool and Puck and the Owl " similar to the present carvings are in the collection of The Chrysler Museum (The Ricau Collection), Norfolk, Va. and of the National Museum of American Art. Washington, D.C.